


where flowers bloom (so does hope)

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Denial, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Secrets, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: There's something ethereal about the man that has Steve's heart humming in his chest, and not in the way that means he's coming down with something. His eyes are roving over the street, catching on things that Steve can't identify. It's like he's trying to rebuild the street with the power of his mind alone, and for a second, Steve believes that he could. This man just doesn't belong at the entrance to a Brooklyn tenement building with wide eyes and fluffy hair and a lost expression on his face.A strange man shows up in Steve's life, only to disappear just as abruptly, leaving Steve behind with a chest full of flowers. Steve doesn't expect to find him again, but he'll live this life as long as the flowers will let him. He owes Anthony that much.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 103





	where flowers bloom (so does hope)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayamoksin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamoksin/gifts).



> Title from a Lady Bird Johnson quote. Thanks to Kait for the beta read!
> 
> Written for Maya in the POTS server. This was going to be a stocking fill, but then it grew and I didn't think I could do it justice quickly enough to finish in time. So, here you are, my dove! A few weeks late, but I hope it's worth the wait!!

The first thing Steve notices about the man is that he isn't from around here. First of all, his clothes are strange, loose where they should be tight and tight where they should be loose. Then there's the fact that he's looking around like he's totally lost, which would have been a dead giveaway even without the clothes. But on top of it all, there's something ethereal about the man that has Steve's heart humming in his chest, and not in the way that means he's coming down with something. His eyes are roving over the street, catching on things that Steve can't identify. It's like he's trying to rebuild the street with the power of his mind alone, and for a second, Steve believes that he could. This man just doesn't belong at the entrance to a Brooklyn tenement building with wide eyes and fluffy hair and a lost expression on his face.

The second thing Steve notices about the man is that he's beautiful.

"You lost?" Steve didn't mean to be quite so abrupt, but the man doesn't seem to mind. He whips around, his lips parted as though he's about to say something. Then his eyes catch on Steve and they go wide with something that's too cold to be recognition. He snaps his jaw shut, and Steve knows without asking that he's being judged for his appearance. Not that he isn't used to that, but something in Steve had thought that things might be different with this man. Something in his heart had just _known_.

Whatever he'd thought he'd known is clearly wrong.

He lifts his chin and glowers at the man, silently daring him to say anything. The man shakes his head as though to clear it and then approaches him.

"Sorry?" he asks. There's a smoothness to his voice that Steve's never heard, certainly not around this part of town. It sends shivers down his spine that he doesn't dare acknowledge. He doesn't let himself be drawn in.

"I asked if you were lost."

The man blinks hard. He nods. "Yeah, I, uh. Yeah, I'm really lost. I don't—" he shakes his head. "I have no idea how I got here."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "You're serious right now."

The man shrugs helplessly, and tosses Steve a charming smile. Steve could almost take pity on him. Almost. He seems like the kind of person that's lived his whole life off his charm — like Bucky, only far more practiced with it. Steve knows he should be wary of him, of someone that can change from being completely lost to so certain to utterly charming in the space of a few seconds. He tries to be wary, he really does, but something in him knows this man, something in his soul, and that has to count for something. Even Buck can't get too mad at him for this, can he?

"Where you from, then?"

"Nowhere near here." the man gives a self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm here on… business." Steve catches the hesitation, but doesn't press. "I'm not sure what exactly that driver thought he was doing dropping me off here looking like this, but he can't have been in his right mind."

"You're well-off, then," Steve says, even as he eyes the man's clothing skeptically. The man follows his gaze and winces, but doesn't give Steve anything more than that. "You got someone that could come get you?"

The man reaches for his pocket, only to stop short. He winces again and says, "No, actually. I don't think I do. My, uh, my business partner called the car. I have reason to believe he's been trying to go behind my back for a few months now. This would just seem to confirm it."

"Well then, you have what you need now, don't you?" Steve doesn't want to turn away from the man, but he has to have his priorities in order. "You'll be able to get back into town alright." He turns away, keeping his shoulders strong and trying to ignore the sinking in his heart.

"Actually—" Against his better judgment, Steve turns to look at the man again. He looks a bit wild around the eyes, and there's something to his manic expression that tugs at Steve's chest. "I don't think I can. The driver, he— He seems to have made off with all the money I had on me. I don't think there's much I can do at this point."

"Sounds like you're in a tough spot, there."

The man winces. "I know what this must look like to you. But I just…" He sighs. "Can you point me in the direction of a safe place to spend the night? I can worry about the rest tomorrow."

Steve's heart clenches. He should know better than to be cruel to someone in need. His mother raised him better than that. "You can come on up with me, then." The man looks startled, and Steve feels almost as much so. "I can't say that I've got much to share, or that it'll be up to your usual standards, but I can give you a place to sleep until you get your situation sorted."

The man hesitates. Steve thinks he should take offense at that, but there's something in the way the man holds himself that keeps the worst of his ego at bay. The man shakes his head. "I wouldn't want to impose."

"You wouldn't be imposing. We have to look out for each other, right?"

The man shakes his head, as though there was something funny in what Steve had said. "I guess so. Still, I can't pay you."

"All I'd ask for is your name."

The man's eyes widen, and a hopeful expression spills over his features. "I'm— I'm Anthony. Anthony Carbonell."

"Well, Anthony." Steve holds his hand out for the man— for Anthony to shake. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Steve Rogers."

"It's nice to meet you too."

* * *

In the three days that Steve had allotted Anthony to figure out what he was going to do, Anthony had instead fixed everything in the building that needed fixing, from the stove in Steve's apartment to the pipes in all the communal bathing areas. Steve's desperate to know why a wealthy man like Anthony knew how to get his hands dirty like that, but he's honestly too busy being grateful to look too closely at the unbelievable reasons Anthony gives for his skills.

When Anthony starts to take his leave on the fourth day, it doesn't take much more than a pointed glance from Bucky to have Steve offering to let him stay a bit longer.

"Just so long as you start looking for a job, then I'm not about to toss you out on your ass."

Anthony had laughed at that — Steve had learned early on that the man had as vulgar a mouth as any sailor he'd ever met — and agreed to do just that.

He'd succeeded in finding a place to work in a matter of hours. For all that Steve had pressed, Anthony hadn't said a word about where he is working. But Steve can't complain while he's bringing home a decent paycheck. Better than decent, actually, and Steve has a sneaking suspicion that he's keeping some of the money instead of putting it in the shared pot.

It doesn't matter. With Anthony bringing in more than his share of the income, it leaves Steve with the opportunity to stay home on the days he was too sick to work. He hates every minute of those days — hates feeling weak and inferior and _less_ — but Anthony and Bucky won't hear of him going out to work.

"You're no good to him if you're dead," Bucky always says, able to see right through Steve as he always has. Anthony just looks at him with sad eyes, and that does what years of Bucky's pleading has never managed to do. It keeps him home.

Days turn to weeks, and Steve finds himself growing more and more comfortable with Anthony in his space. They move around one another easily enough in the kitchen, and sit on the tiny couch together, Anthony working on designs in a tiny sketchbook while Steve works on his own small time commissions. And while Anthony still sleeps on the floor, Steve's thoughts wander more and more to the possibility of inviting him to bed.

Not that he ever would. Too dangerous, especially for a rich man like Anthony.

"I keep telling you, Steve, I'm not rich anymore."

"Maybe not the way you used to be, but you'll always be that person."

Anthony's eyes flicker with hurt every time Steve alludes to his past, but he doesn't ever say anything more. He just forces a smile and goes back to fiddling with his designs.

As the days grow cold, Steve's asthma gets worse. Bucky fusses over him, but it's the quiet way Anthony retreats into himself in those moments that really gets to Steve. It's 1942 and the war is blazing overseas. For all that Steve has never liked bullies, he can't find it in himself to want to stand up to these bullies. Mostly, he wants to sleep.

Then, the day comes when Anthony comes home looking distraught. Steve puts the worst of his sickness aside and forces himself to meet Anthony directly.

"What's wrong?"

Anthony startles, looking at Steve as though he'd forgotten that he wouldn't be alone upon returning home. It stings, but the pain drifts away as soon as Anthony speaks.

"It's— An old business associate of mine got in touch. He says he has evidence to restore my family's wealth to me."

Steve ignores the way that the stinging in his chest intensifies and smiles instead. "But that's good news. That means you can return to your home."

Anthony looks away before Steve can catch sight of his expression. Steve drags himself to his feet in an effort to get closer to Anthony, but Anthony meets him more than halfway, easing him back down onto the bed. "Careful. Please, for God's sake, be _careful_."

Steve ignores the admonition and grasps Anthony's sleeve. "You will go, won't you? To reclaim what is yours?"

Anthony closes his eyes. "I won't be able to return to you."

"What? Why?"

"It's— it's complicated. I don't know if I can quite explain it."

That cuts deeper than the rest, but Steve shoves it aside. For all his brilliance, Anthony has always managed to explain things in ways that Steve could understand. If he can't do it now— But this isn't about him. This is about Anthony, and him getting his life back. "That's okay. This is your life, Anthony. You deserve to have that. To have everything that you were born with."

Anthony hesitates. "And if I don't want that?"

"What else could you possibly want?"

Anthony closes his eyes. "Very well. I will see to it that I vacate the premises within the week."

"Anthony—"

"It's alright, Steve." Anthony gives him a tired smile. "I know who I am. I know my place."

"What? Anthony—"

"Don't, Steve. Please, just. Just don't."

Falling silent then and there is the biggest regret of Steve's life.

* * *

Bucky glares at him for a week after Anthony disappears as though he had never been there. There's an absence at the table when he eats dinner, and a quiet while he sketches that Tony's voice used to fill. The scent of him in the air is altogether absent, and it makes Steve's lungs ache worse than his asthma. But he doesn't dare let any of that show to Bucky. It would only make him angrier about something neither of them can control.

"He was good to you, Stevie. Always was. You really telling me that you just let him go?"

"What other choice did I have? It's his life, Bucky, and it's not like I could—"

"Could what?:" Bucky presses when Steve can't verbalize the tiny, desperate hope that had taken root in his chest. "Not like you could what?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, does it? He's gone now."

Bucky swears, but he doesn't press any further.

Weeks turn to a month, then two, and as the time passes, Steve finds himself getting beaten up more and more, the way he used to before Anthony. Bucky has noticed too, if the way he keeps glaring at Steve every time he has to bail Steve out is any indication. But he doesn't push. He knows what it's costing Steve to not have Anthony at his side anymore, both financially and in his heart. Steve had never told Bucky outright, but they aren't best friends for nothing. Bucky knows his inclinations, and has kept his secret religiously.

Now, as it seems Bucky's orders are creeping nearer and nearer, Steve has even less to lose.

And if, the night after his fourth failed enlistment attempt, he coughs so hard that he nearly passes out, that's something he can keep quiet from Bucky until he leaves. Waking up the next morning to unseasonal pink camellia petals on his pillow is the confirmation that Steve neither needs nor wants that there's something bigger going on. He knows exactly what it is, and hiding it from Bucky is going to be a damn sight harder than hiding the rest.

He's in love with Anthony Carbonell, and now there is no chance for that to be reciprocated.

* * *

The doctor frowns as he moves the stethoscope across Steve's back. Steve knows what's coming before he asks, but that doesn't make the words hurt any less.

"Your lungs."

Steve can almost feel the flowers' vines wrapping even more tightly around his lungs. "Sir?"

The doctor purses his lips, but before he can pull the stethoscope away, a nurse makes her way in and speaks to the doctor in low tones. The doctor nods in response and tells Steve that he'll be right back. Steve only needs to look at the notice on the wall to realize he's been made.

A new doctor makes his way in, and the conversation hides a serious accusation under superficial words. Steve holds his ground until the doctor asks him the one thing he doesn't have an answer to.

"You must understand my confusion, young man. Applying while infected with the hanahaki disease? Surely even you know better than that."

Steve clenches his jaw, and then speaks the words that he hasn't dared let Bucky hear. "I'm dying already. Might as well put me to use in the field. Maybe I can save someone else from dying too young." _I can't save Bucky. I couldn't save Anthony. Maybe I can save someone else._.

The doctor looks pleased at the response, though why Steve can't for the life of him figure out. "Well. We already have so many strong men. Maybe what we need now is the little guy."

Steve wishes he weren't as thrilled as he is, but the truth is, if he has to go on without Anthony and without something else to live for, he's not going to make it much longer.

Steve follows Erskine into the SSR and fights through the worst of his hanahaki, swallowing bile after training and coughing up petals every moment he's alone. It's getting worse, and he can see the way Erskine is eyeing him. But Steve refuses to give in. It's not what Anthony would have wanted of him, and if Erskine is right, this top-secret procedure he's signed up for might be enough to cure his hanahaki as well as all the other illnesses that have plagued him his whole life. Maybe they'll be enough to quiet the storm in his chest that Anthony left behind.

* * *

It works. That might be the worst part; the procedure works. When Steve steps out of the pod they'd put him in, more than a foot taller and breathing easier than he has in months and breathing easy for the first time in his life, Steve can only believe that the hanahaki has faded and that he's going to live the rest of his life without that remnant of Anthony in his body.

He hadn't thought he'd miss it.

And, for the most part he doesn't. As he races to chase down Erskine's killer, as he fights his way through all of the obstacles that Phillips and Brandt put in his way, as he dances and marches and fights his way to the front, he doesn't miss the pain. He doesn't miss the constant, crushing reminder of the loss of Anthony, and how it's hurt him so deeply.

Sometimes he misses Anthony badly enough that he almost wishes his lungs hurt the way they used to, but he tries not to look too closely at those times.

Still, with. Bucky standing next to him again and the rest of the Howling Commandos fighting beside them, Steve forgets, for a while, that he had someone he loved that deeply.

For awhile.

Six weeks before Steve loses him, Bucky catches Steve in the throes of a coughing fit the likes of which neither of them has seen since the serum. It comes on unannounced after Steve was too close to a Hydra bomb going off, and something about it feels altogether too familiar to Steve. When the worst of the hacking fades, Steve knows what he's going to see.

That doesn't make it any easier to meet Bucky's eyes over a palm full of flower petals.

When Bucky stares back at him with a deadened sort of acceptance in his eyes, Steve doesn't know what to think.

He means to keep it between the two of them — the Howlies don't need to know, and neither do any of the officers, but of course Peggy finds out. Catches him in a lie one day and insists on the truth. It isn't until she threatens to go to Bucky that he concedes and tells her what he knows. That the flowers have been there since before the serum. That he'd thought they'd gone. That they'd apparently come back. That maybe they never left.

Peggy nods in all the right places, makes all the right sympathetic noises, and clasps his bicep when he finishes. "If he left you behind, he didn't deserve your love in the first place."

Steve doesn't have the words to tell her how wrong she is, but it's a nice sentiment.

Then he loses Bucky in one fell swoop and goes charging head-first through death's door, being whatever it is that he can be for his country. Being whoever he can be that might, possibly, have been worthy of Anthony.

And Peggy — blessed, beautiful, wonderful Peggy — keeps their flimsy cover intact as he sends the plane plunging into the arctic circle. It'll be a quick death, he thinks. Quick and easy. Better than the slow strangulation via the vines in his chest.

And that thought is enough to remind him of Anthony in a way he hasn't let himself think of the man in weeks. His hand at the small of Steve's back, supporting his then-frail form. The easy comfort of his presence at Steve's side. The amused lilt in his voice when Steve did something he deemed particularly ridiculous. He shouldn't be able to recall these things with such clarity, not with the years between him and Anthony, but he can't erase them. Anthony has been in his lungs for so long that Steve doesn't think he knows how to live without him anymore. Doesn't think he would be even if he could. This is his love for Anthony made real in his body, and Steve will never let that go.

Even so, he knows Anthony wouldn't want him to suffer when he died. He'd want Steve to go easy into the night, to live until he couldn't anymore, and then pass away without pain. So this, going headfirst into the ice and the ocean, isn't as terrible a thing as it seems to everyone around him.

It's better this way.

* * *

Waking up seventy years later should have killed him. The doctors had apparently taken one look at an x-ray of his chest and the mess of flowers in there and rushed him into surgery. They blessedly hadn't removed the core of the plant — Steve didn't think he could stand it if he forgot how to love Anthony — but they cut back as much as they could.

A life-saving technique that had apparently been developed in the last fifty years. Steve doesn't know why and frankly doesn't see any reason to ask. He just smiles placidly at the doctors, nods at everything they say, and gently asks them to strike the information from his file. He doesn't need the world to know he was a liability like this. Not when there's nothing they can do to bring Anthony back to him.

He'd looked, of course. Had scoured the Internet for any scrap of information about Anthony Carbonell. Nothing had come up.

So he'll stay here and hold onto the memories he has left of Anthony, to the weight of him in Steve's chest, and he'll let that be enough. He'll let that be enough because it has to be.

"Don't worry," Fury assures him within an hour of Steve regaining full consciousness. They're barely a third of the way through his debriefing, but this seems to be something that Fury wants them both to understand sooner rather than later. "The doctors all signed an NDA. A non-disclosure agreement," he says when Steve stares at him. "Only the best of the best for you, Captain, especially in this. No one else will know except for those medical professionals that you don't expressly want on your medical team, understood?"

Steve nods. He's not sure what else he can do.

Hours bleed into days, but before they can bleed into weeks, Fury hands him a packet of important people that he might want to know. People that had been connected to his past. Peggy and Dum Dum and Howard and—

And that's when everything starts to come into focus. Because the man staring back at him— The man staring back at him from Tony Stark's file is none other than Anthony Carbonell.

But that can't be right. Tony hadn't even been born when Anthony had stepped into Steve's life. And yes, okay, maybe he had seen some of the resemblance between Anthony and Howard in the lab that day, but he'd never thought—

But there's no denying it. No mistaking the clean line of Tony's jaw or the light in his eyes or the easy slant of his lips. This is Anthony, as sure as Steve has ever known him, and that— that makes more sense than it should. _Maria Carbonell_ , the previous sheet had said. His mother's last name. It should be impossible, but then, so should Steve's existence in this century. This should be impossible, but there's the proof in front of him in stark black text.

For the first time since before the serum, Steve lets himself feel the weight of the flowers in his lungs. He lets himself feel it, and, when the sensation becomes too much, he weeps.

* * *

He doesn't mean to greet Tony so coldly that night in Germany. It's just that this man — this loud, brash, ostentatious, brilliant, skyscraper of a man is nothing like his Anthony. His Anthony, who sat with him when the cough got to be too much. When the loss of his mother ached too close to his heart. When Bucky was off with his latest gal and left the two of them alone to find comfort in one another.

Not like _that_ , of course. Not that Steve hadn't wished it in later years but—

But this man isn't his Anthony.

Not at first.

But then he trusts Steve with his life on the battlefield once, twice, a dozen times over, and it feels like maybe, even if he isn't Steve's Anthony yet, he could be. Someday, he could be.

Until he flies a nuclear bomb through a hole in the sky and all Steve can think is that it's too soon. That he can't lose Tony before he's even gotten to know him, can't lose this shadow of Anthony, however it is that he came to be in Steve's life. If this is all that he gets of Anthony, all he gets of _Tony_ , then maybe this is all he was meant to have. All he was meant to be. Maybe he was always supposed to lose the people he loved.

Until Tony comes crashing back through the hole, tumbling head over heels in the air, pinwheeling to his death and Steve can't breathe because it had been one thing to know Tony was going to die somewhere out in space, lost and so far away, but this— to _see_ him come crashing down to his death, to know that he'll have to go see the man's body, bloody and batters, bones shattered on impact; Steve can't—

Thor is speaking next to him and there's a roar from somewhere vaguely to his left but Steve can't find it in himself to care about any of that. He can't care about any of that because if there's even a _chance_ —

_Please let there be a chance._

When the Hulk drops Tony at his feet. When he yanks the faceplate off of Tony's face. When he leans down and hears no heartbeat through the damning metal and the whirring of Tony's arc reactor. For that split second, Steve feels the flowers in his chest tighten around his lungs ever more tightly, with a certainty that Steve can't deny. He'd known once that he would die for the man he loves, but to know it so fiercely, to feel it so concretely, it's more than he can bear. Tony— _Anthony_ had looked so lost when Steve first saw him, and somehow that image of him, lost and alone, had cemented itself into Steve's mind. Here, now, the tables have turned so perfectly, so impeccably, that Steve has become the one at a loss. Without Anthony, without Tony, without the potential that his life brings to Steve's lungs, Steve isn't sure he'll survive.

Tony may not be exactly who Anthony was, but having some small part of the man is better than not having him at all. Steve sinks back on his heels. He doesn't think he can bear this loss again.

Then the Hulk roars and Tony jerks back to life beneath them and Steve feels everything in his chest settle. This is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.

* * *

Five weeks later, after more than a month of press conferences and debriefings and shifting rubble so they can try to rebuild Midtown, Steve wakes up in the medical wing of SHIELD with almost-healed surgical wounds on his chest. He doesn't need to look to know that Fury's there.

"Again?"

"Again."

Steve closes his eyes. "They don't get to take out the root system."

Fury stays quiet for longer than Steve likes, but when he speaks, the words are laced with a kind of patience that Steve never thought he would ever hear from Fury's throat. "Understood, Captain."

* * *

The worst part of it all, is that Tony still isn't Anthony. He's cold and prickly and surly by turns; loud, affable, and vivacious by others. It hurts in ways Steve had forgotten love could.

The worst part is that amidst all his bravado and skin-deep charm, Tony is nothing like his father or the man that Steve had fallen in love with. He isn't Howard and he _certainly_ isn't Anthony, 

The worst part is that Tony seems to think everyone should just be grateful to be in his presence, as though he really is god's gift to humanity, and not just one more person put here on this earth to do whatever he was made to do. 

The worst part is that—

The worst part is that there's no worst part. Because for all that Steve wants to find all of Tony Stark's flaws, he can't seem to help but find his strengths by the same token. Because he did fly a nuke through a wormhole. He did risk his life to keep New York, and the world, safe. He did invite all of them into his home. He did— he did make a place for all of them under his roof, no matter how much space there was under that roof. Tony didn't seem like someone to offer that lightly. There's nothing truly awful about Tony Stark except that—

Well. Except that he isn't Anthony. Somehow that was worse than anything else about this whole situation. He could handle the rest of it — the loss and the death and the absence of everything he knew — but having that brief moment when he'd thought he might have gotten Anthony amidst all the other loss had almost made everything else worth it. And then he hadn't even had that.

Anthony's gone, same as the rest, and if that means Steve needs to go on having the vines removed from his chest every few weeks, then so be it.

* * *

Tony's presence starts to worm its way into Steve's chest alongside the flowers. It isn't the same way he'd loved Anthony. It's not the familiarity of Anthony's hands at work beside him on the couch, it's the way Tony's hands dance through the air as he works the holo screens in front of him. It isn't Anthony easing his portion of breakfast in front of Steve at the dinner table, it's Tony letting Steve drag him up to team dinners when he'd rather be working. It isn't Anthony bantering about work with Bucky over dinner, it's Tony arguing battle strategy with Natasha. Steve isn't sure when it happened, but by the time he realizes that it has, it's too late. After six months in the Tower with Tony and the rest of the Avengers, he'd almost wonder if there couldn't be two sets of flowers in his lungs now — one for Tony and one for Anthony — except that, as far as Fury knows, that's never happened before.

Still. First time for everything.

But the surgeon confirms it the next time he cuts Steve's chest open. "Only one root system in there, Captain, you can be sure of that." Steve takes his word for it, even though it doesn't seem possible.

Because, impossible as it seems, he has come to love Tony. It's not the same as the way he loves Anthony, not old and crinkling at the edges, worn with age, but just as strong and certain in his chest as his love for Anthony. It shouldn't be possible — he's loved Anthony longer — but there's no way this is anything but the truth. He loves Tony too.

He loves the sound of Tony's laughter. His easy grace. The ferocity in his eyes when he's discussing a passion project with Bruce or arguing about acceptable use of the ventilation system with Clint. He loves the space Tony's made for them in the Tower, and more than that he loves the space Tony's made for Steve in his workshop. It's the kind of home Steve had forgotten could exist while fighting his way across Europe. He'd forgotten this is what family could feel like, what _home_ could feel like, and it's Tony that's made it possible.

Which is why, when Tony's suit goes dead in the middle of a fight and collapses to the ground as Tony himself is zapped out of existence, all the air leaves Steve's chest in a rush. Because Tony can't be gone. That can't be happening. He won't let it.

* * *

"A rift in the what now?"

Bruce sighs. "The time-space continuum, Steve. Don't pretend to be an idiot; it doesn't suit you."

It takes more effort than it probably should for Steve to wrap his mind around the fact that Tony might not be dead. More than that, to understand that maybe he'd been wrong about Anthony and Tony the whole time.

"So you're saying that Tony's, what? In the past?"

'In your past specifically. From what I can understand, the intent was to return you to your pre-serum state, but when the electric field hit Tony instead, there was an unexpected backlash. It must have approximated the intended result by sending Tony back in time."

"But you can bring him back, right?" Clint asks.

"Of course he can."

Bruce looks over at Steve, his jaw slack. "What?"

"You already did." Steve gets slowly to his feet, hating the way everything is coming together in his head. "He went back in time and stayed for about a few weeks before you brought him back."

"How do you know that?"

Steve meets Bruce's gaze. :Because he spent those weeks with me. Before he left, he told me an old colleague had found a way to—" He shakes his head. "Well, never mind what he said. The point is, Bruce, you can do it. I know you can."

Steve doesn't listen to the disbelief in the room behind him as he turns and leaves the room. He has plenty to do himself in the meantime while Bruce works. Not to mention that if the tension in his chest is any indication, he probably needs to see the surgeon again sooner rather than later. He'll let Bruce take care of Tony — of _Anthony_ — and in the meantime Steve will figure out what this truth means for him and his future. Because it must mean something. He just doesn't know what, yet.

* * *

Tony comes stumbling through a shining portal three weeks later. At least, that's what Clint tells Steve later. Steve himself had been in surgery when it happened, otherwise he'd have been there too. No one tells Tony where Steve was because no one knew where Steve was, and that's just the way Steve likes it. If it means that things are frosty between them for the first few days after Tony's return, then so be it. But even that chilliness fades with time, and then the two of them are back to where they were before: comfortable in the other's space and easily sociable in the common areas. Whatever Tony took away from his time as Anthony doesn't seem to have changed a damn thing about how he feels about Steve, and that's perfectly fine with him. Things can keep going as they are for a good while yet, so long as the surgeons keep doing their jobs.

* * *

The surgeons keep telling him they can only do so much. Steve doesn't care. Not now that he knows there's only one set of flowers in his lungs for a very simple reason: the torch he carries has always been for the same man.

* * *

Nat's the one that catches him out first. He's just made his way out of the bathroom after five minutes of dry heaving dahlia petals from his lungs and nearly bowls her over in his haste to get away from the evidence.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?"

Steve frowns down at her. "Come again?"

She raises one perfectly trimmed eyebrow at him. He's long since learned that she doesn't pull her punches with him, and that there's no point in trying to hide anything from her, but this… he'd hoped he could at least hide _this_.

"Nat—"

"You don't have to tell me," she says, "but if it makes you a liability, in the field you need to at least tell Tony." Steve flinches, and that seems to be all the confirmation that Nat needs. "Unless Tony's the issue."

Steve doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. Nat's not someone he's ever been able to hide anything from. Not effectively. So why would he even bother trying to hide this? "It won't be a problem."

"The hell it won't. If I know your little jaunts to the hospital have been getting more and more frequent, you can be damn sure Stark knows too. Keeping it hidden from him like this isn't going to make things better. Or easier."

"And telling him will?"

"Telling him that you love him? Yeah, I think it will. At least then you could—"

"I'm not having it removed, Natasha." Steve doesn't recognize the frosty tone in his voice, and neither does Nat if the minute shift in her expression is any indication. "If it means I don't get to spend the next thirty years in some white picket fence life with the man I love, fine. I'm perfectly content to live out the rest of my life serving my country."

"And if he returns your feelings?"

"He doesn't."

"You can't possibly know that."

"I do, Nat. I know that and I won't have you adding this burden to him just because you think he might be dumb enough to turn his head in my direction."

"Stark's a genius."

"All the more reason not to imply anything to him."

Nat purses her lips. "You know he's going to figure it out eventually."

"Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't get to tell him my secrets."

Nat stares at him for a moment longer before she sighs and lifts her hands in surrender. "Your life, your choices, beefcake. Just—" She hesitates, and Steve aches with the knowledge that he's driven the unflappable Natasha Romanov to this. "Just keep me posted, okay?"

Steve's throat tightens around the words he wants to speak. The gratitude that she's in his corner, that she wants to know that he's okay, that she's looking out for him. It feels like more than he deserves, but he isn't above taking her up on the offer. He nods once. She returns the gesture. That's the last they speak of it for weeks.

* * *

When Steve has to have two surgeries just five days apart, he finally starts to accept the reality that he's on borrowed time. The surgeon has made it abundantly clear that things are only going to get worse. Steve's sure Tony could write an algorithm to tell him how fast the flowers' growth rate is accelerating in his body, how much time he still has. For all that Steve would like to know exactly how much borrowed time he has, that would mean that Tony would have to _know_. And that's unacceptable. Steve would much rather spend his dwindling days at Tony's side.

Because the day is going to come when the surgeons aren't fast enough. When he's on an extended mission that goes wrong and leaves him stranded without the possibility of medical intervention. When the flowers are just going to end his life.

The day is coming, but Steve isn't going to rush along Tony's pain. Better to let this lie a little longer.

Better for all of them.

* * *

The day Tony almost collapses after training, Steve's heart almost stops. He's at Tony's side before Tony can even get back to his knees.

"Tony, are you—"

Tony rolls his shoulders to push Steve off. "Reduced lung capacity, Cap." Tony tosses Steve a quirk of a smile and raps on the arc reactor in his chest. "Comes with the territory."

The brief swell of hope in Steve's chest disappears, followed closely on its heels by a sense of self-loathing. He shouldn't want Tony to be in pain. That's as far from loving him as Steve can get. And he does love him, has learned to love him all over again even when he never stopped loving him. Has learned to love _this_ version of Tony just as much as he loved Anthony. Maybe more, because this is Anthony fully realized into the man he hadn't been able to let Steve know before. He loves Tony, and how cruel is it for him to wish the pain of hanahaki on him. Tony doesn't deserve that. _No one_ deserves that. And if Steve has to die with this secret, well, then he'll die with it.

He won't wish this pain on Tony again.

"Cap?"

Steve manages a weak smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I can see that, I guess."

Tony frowns at him and opens his mouth to ask, but Steve makes his excuses and disappears before Tony can push. If Tony pushes, Steve knows he'll give, and that's unacceptable.

He can't give in. Not now. Not again.

* * *

Which of course means that a week later sees him, Nat, and Tony stranded on a remote Polynesian island just a day before Steve was scheduled to go in for another now-routine removal surgery. The intel had been on point, except for the fact that the AIM cell they were tracking had more advanced weaponry than Tony was expecting. They'd managed to knock out their communications with the mainland and the takeoff system in the quinjet that should have been their extraction plan. Tony said he could get them out of there without it, except that a tropical storm had blown in before they could get off the ground. Which had been right around the moment that Steve had lost consciousness courtesy of the pressure from the flowers in his lungs.

He'd been sure that was it — over, dine, finito. Instead, he comes around at some point, still in massive amounts of pain, which means he probably isn't dead yet. Probably.

His first confirmation comes from his ears. Never his best sense in his youth, but functional enough nowadays. The first thing Steve hears when he comes around is Tony's voice.

"Of course it's unrequited, Nat." Tony's voice is high and piercing, shaky in a way that Steve's never heard before. "If it was requited, he'd be dead. Or they'd have plucked it out of him just the same when they pulled him out of the ocean. You don't really think they'd let him keep the root system, do you?"

Nat doesn't answer, and Steve can feel the weight of her gaze on Tony as if she were looking at him instead.

"Romanov—"

"He's not most people, Stark."

"Nat— Nat, don't— _please_ don't make me hope like this. I don't— I don't deserve him."

Steve needs to cut that thought off at the pass. He tries to make a sound, but only a low groan makes its way past his lips. His companions both fall silent, and then he hears Natasha shift. She whispers something to Tony — Steve's too out of it to make the words out — and then there's the sound of a door opening and closing. They must have made it back to the bunker. He's expecting it to be Nat that's stayed behind. He's expecting it to be her talking him down from the pain at the end of his life. He's expecting to die without ever hearing Tony's voice again.

"Steve?"

Instead he gets the clank of Tony's boots on the ground and the faint hiss of hydraulics as Tony steps out of the suit. Steve forces his eyes open and turns to look at Tony through the ache that has spread all the way up to his tear ducts.

"Steve?"

Steve blinks once. He doesn't have the words, but, God, does he wish he did.

Tony drops to his knees. "Steve. Tell me she's wrong. Tell me— Tell me your medical whatever for the last year hasn't been this. Tell me you haven't been hanging onto these damn flowers just for me."

Steve parts his lips, feeling the way the vines are crawling their way up his throat. "Can't," he whispers.

"Steve—"

"True. All true."

Tony sobs, his shoulders trembling. "Steve, please, you can't— you _can't_ —"

Steve reaches out toward Tony, turning a hand to lie palm up on the cot between them.

"Steve—"

"Okay," 

Tony shakes his head. "Steve—"

"It's okay, Tony."

"For God's sakes, you stubborn man, just—" Something flashes over Tony's face. Then all at once he leans down toward Steve. He cups the back of Steve's neck in one hand and presses his lips to Steve's in the same moment. Steve doesn't move, desperate and uncertain and, dare he think it, _hopeful_ for a moment. Tony kisses him and kisses him and then something dark and awful climbs up the back of Steve's throat. He turns away from Tony, hacking and coughing until the darkness is dislodged, and then—

Then he hears the sound of Tony doing the same to his side, and for a moment Steve can't quite believe that this is happening. He drags himself upright again to stare at Tony's shoulders. "You too?" he asks when Tony sits upright again.

Tony smiles, small and exhausted. The ground beside him is littered with petals and vinery and the last remnants of the physical manifestation of his love. "Yeah, Steve. Me too."

"But you—"

"Love you, you idiot. I have since Brooklyn."

"But then, how… why were you hiding it? You must have known how gone I was on you."

Tony smiles weakly. He gets to his knees and shuffles over to Steve. Steve reaches out for him in kind, and pulls Tony the last few centimeters across the floor. Tony rests his forehead against Steve's, and Steve lets himself inhale the scent of coffee on Tony's breath instead of the hint of rot and decay that's rolling off what remains of their root systems.

"I didn't know," Tony whispers. "Steve, I didn't… I didn't know."

Steve kisses Tony before he can start to apologize. "I didn't know either. But we know now. That's what matters."

Tony smiles against him. "Yeah. We've got plenty of time to make up for, Rogers. You'd better make the most of it."

"Believe me," Steve says with a laugh, "I will."


End file.
